This is a question that comes up a lot among writers who are working on academic books. Like so many aspects of scholarly publishing, there is not one correct answer! Or at least not a definitive, satisfying one. The most accurate answer is that your book should be as long as it needs to be to fully develop and support its central argument. For some books, that’s 40,000 words; for some it’s 150,000. But what people are usually looking for is a ballpark average range for the kind of book they are writing. This is an eminently logical thing to want to know, because publishers, tenure committees, and readers all have pre-existing expectations for what a book should be like, and there can be real consequences if you deviate too far from convention.
How Long Should Your Book Be?
How Long Should Your Book Be?
How Long Should Your Book Be?
This is a question that comes up a lot among writers who are working on academic books. Like so many aspects of scholarly publishing, there is not one correct answer! Or at least not a definitive, satisfying one. The most accurate answer is that your book should be as long as it needs to be to fully develop and support its central argument. For some books, that’s 40,000 words; for some it’s 150,000. But what people are usually looking for is a ballpark average range for the kind of book they are writing. This is an eminently logical thing to want to know, because publishers, tenure committees, and readers all have pre-existing expectations for what a book should be like, and there can be real consequences if you deviate too far from convention.